Hey Bhagwan, What The World Did Not Need Right Now Was More Tik Tokers

If the number of days spent in social isolation is directly proportional to the number of hours people spend on TikTok, I submit that a social media lockdown is as important as social distancing. We often spend copious amounts of time playing games on our phones, checking the latest Instagram updates and sifting through fact and fiction on WhatsApp. The one guilty pleasure though, which no one wants to admit to, is the countless hours we spend browsing through TikTok videos -- don’t pretend like you’ve never done it!

TikTok - A bridge too far

A startling social experiment revealed that when a man or a woman enters an elevator, if there are several people standing facing awkward directions or one particular direction, the person who enters will also stand with his or her back to the door, or follow the way the crowd is placed. Social media, evidently, is a massive benefactor of this herd mentality innate in us. When our friends started migrating from Orkut to Facebook, we truly felt helpless and in a gargantuan moment of FOMO, we began to follow suit.

One domino knocked another, which knocked another, and before we knew it -- we had a mass shift, leaving only a stubborn minority behind. TikTok however, seemed like a frontier that the slightly “smarter” lot simply wouldn't congregate. We inherently felt that it was lowering the quality of content we consume and we vowed to stay away. Alas, in this tug of war, it's TikTok which has the last laugh as our resilience seems to be on the wane.

In this time of house arrest, as miserable as we feel saying this -- a lot of those who would never approve of joining this particular bandwagon have lost the battle. Yep, quarantine has made everyone a Tik Toker!

The banality of banality

Facebook exploded and was able to sustain it's rise because it gradually infiltrated every strand of modern life, from businesses to entertainment to public services. YouTube, on the other hand, took on the establishment at times and offered a channel for alternative voices and ideas which were so far largely ignored. Outlets like FB, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter continue to evolve, but there is a certain shelf life to the fun one can have on TikTok. Really, how many videos of people lip-synching "Tujhe Dekha Toh Yeh Jaana Sanam" can we watch? Aren't we all exhausted from workout challenges, ab crunches and push-ups? Do we really need any make-up tutorials or cooking lessons on TikTok?

While the rant felt good, here's our million-dollar suggestion -- Why not put forth a new challenge, one that requires every Tik Toker to post screenshots of us UNINSTALLING the damn app! I bet you, it'll spread faster than a certain virus that originated from a certain wet market in a certain authoritarian country.

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